


As It Should Be

by shaenie



Category: LoTR FPS (more or less interchangable book/movie canon)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-05-31
Updated: 2003-05-31
Packaged: 2017-10-12 05:18:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/121209
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shaenie/pseuds/shaenie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pie and interruptions and issues with a nightshirt</p>
            </blockquote>





	As It Should Be

**Author's Note:**

> For [](http://www.livejournal.com/users/water_vole/profile)[**water_vole**](http://www.livejournal.com/users/water_vole/), who has been angelic in her patience (Pippin-like, truly). Written for her challenge: tickling, ale, and fun. Turned out long (as per usual) and somewhat more seious than I had expected.

"Pippin!" Merry gasped, and for a bare moment, he was only amused at the fact that he seemed to spend half his time saying just that, just Pippin's name in that exact tone. Pip never seemed to run out of things to do that could make Merry say it. Then amusement fled, because the look on Pippin's face reminded Merry of what he'd been in the middle of when Pippin had burst into the room, his hands full of plundered kitchen delicacies. Belatedly, Merry fisted a handful of bedclothes and jerked them upwards to conceal himself. "Pippin!" he repeated, but this time his voice was less shocked and more admonishing. "Have you not got the manners to knock on another's _closed_ door? I know you were better raised, Took or not!"

"Merry, I _never_ knock!" Pippin objected, and of course, only Pippin would stand there with his hands full of ale and what looked to be an entire pie, and truly believe _that_ was a good excuse for such behaviour. When he'd entered, he'd jumped at the sight of Merry - bedclothes around his thighs, quite naked and obviously busy - and sloshed ale on to his own nightshirt and Merry's floor. He looked down at his ale-soaked feet and scowled. "And you startled me, yelling like that. I've spilled half the ale!"

Merry struggled against laughter, because laughing only encouraged Pippin. Nevermind that it was just genuinely funny that Pippin should interrupt Merry amusing himself in the dead of night and be far more worried about spilt ale than what Merry had been doing. He managed to master the urge to laugh, but his voice was still more amused than chiding when he said: "For the love of the Lady, Pippin, come in or go out, but shut the _door!_ I'm not decent!"

Pippin actually hesitated a moment, and Merry wondered if, for once, good sense would prevail on the lad to take himself off somewhere. But no. Merry should've known better. Pippin cocked his head, and - quite seriously - asked: "I've spilt more ale than we have left." He gestured with the two half full mugs in one hand. "Should I just go nip a bit more, do you think?"

Pippin and good sense lay at opposite ends of the Shire from each other.

"No, that will be quite enough, Pip," Merry said, and sighed silently. _You could have just given him no choice but to go_ , the logical portion of Merry's brain pointed out helpfully. He shushed it resolutely. Pippin had food and ale, and the rest could wait until after Pip retreated drunkenly to his own room. Merry really should have expected this, after all. Even after all the times he'd slept at Brandy Hall, Pippin was uncomfortable in a bed that was not his own, and usually ended up in Merry's bed by breakfast. He didn't object when Pippin ventured into the room, kicking the door closed behind him with the heel of one foot.

"I've brought pie," Pippin announced brightly, and Merry snorted. Pippin looked affronted.

"Pippin?" Merry said, with what he thought surely constituted near-elfish patience, considering what he was still concealing beneath a lapful of sheets and one hand. "What possessed you to steal a pie in the wee hours of the morning and expect me to be awake to eat it?"

"But you are awake, Merry," Pippin pointed out, and moved further into the room with exaggerated care, so as to avoid slopping any more of the ale. "And I brought the whole pie, too! If you were asleep - which you aren't - I was sure you'd wake up for a bit of a snack."

And for a moment, it looked like Pippin's gaze fell to Merry's lap. And was Pippin smirking?

But before Merry could be sure of it, Pippin was unloading the pie and the mugs of ale onto Merry's bedside table, his brow furrowing a bit in concentration as he made room among the other detritus that seemed to always gather atop it. Merry leaned forward to help, sweeping aside a handful of brightly coloured, water polished stones that he and Pippin had found the day before on the banks of the Brandywine, several bottles of coloured inks that Merry had been using in his attempts at making a proper map of Buckland (an idea he'd taken a fancy too out of admiration of old Bilbo's collections of maps), several quills, a small, potted pipeweed plant he'd been cultivating, and a jar of sweet, herbal smelling salve that cook used on her chapped hands, which Merry had been using to… oh bugger.

Pippin picked up the jar and hefted it thoughtfully in one hand. He didn't open the jar to examine the contents, didn't lift it to his nose to sniff it, which would have been very much in character for Pippin. He did not ask Merry why he had it, which was downright baffling for Pippin. The half of Merry's time not spent uttering Pippin's name in astonishment and disbelief had always been spent satisfying Pippin's relentless curiosity.

Questions would have been embarrassing, to be sure, but they would have been _normal._ Non-questioning Pippin was not normal.

Pippin returned the jar to the tabletop and helped himself to one of the mugs of ale instead. He drank deeply, and Merry just looked at him, puzzled.

Non-questioning, _not even talking_ Pippin was beyond abnormal; it was positively impossible.

"Pippin?" he asked finally, when the silence had gone on long enough to make him downright anxious. "Pip?"

Pippin turned toward him with a grin, and something tight and uncomfortable loosened in Merry's chest. "Don't you want your ale, Merry?" he asked, eyes bright and sparkling, and so very Pippin that Merry all but forgot about his anxiety. Merry took the offered mug and downed a good deal of its contents before Pippin deftly relieved him of it and replaced it with the pie tin.

"Cook will skin you alive if she finds out you've made off with and entire pie, Pippin Took," Merry scolded, but not without some genuine admiration. He accepted the fork Pippin held out and scooted over so Pippin could scramble up beside him on the bed.

"Ugh," Pippin muttered and plucked at his ale-soaked nightshirt unhappily. He glanced at Merry thoughtfully for a moment, eyes lingering on Merry's bare chest and belly, and then shrugged and tugged the nightshirt up and over his head before Merry could even think to object. He flung it toward the foot of the bed while Merry stared, too surprised to even utter his traditional 'Pippin!' of outrage, and then he tugged some of the covers off of Merry to cover himself to the waist.

"Cook is too fat to catch me," Pippin snorted, and pinched the fork from between Merry's unresisting fingers. He helped himself to a heaping bite of pie while Merry considered the fact that Pippin's naked thigh was pressed up against his own naked thigh. "Strawberry Rhubarb," Pippin announced around a mouthful. "Your favourite, Merry."

Which was absolutely true, but which Merry's suddenly preoccupied mind couldn't seem to fit into the conversation. He distracted himself by stealing the fork back from Pippin and helping himself to a bite of pie.

"Don't hog the fork, Merry!" Pippin objected and, after only two or three really, very reasonably sized bites, Merry reluctantly surrendered the fork, and watched Pippin ravage the pie as though he hadn't eaten nearly his own weight at dinner only a few hours before.

"If you keep that up, you'll be too full and sleepy to run away from cook when she discovers your pilfering," Merry pointed out, amused. "You'll give yourself a bellyache, Pip. Slow down."

Pippin laughed, and Merry noted that Pippin had strawberry on his chin. "Stuff you, Merry. You were eating it just as quickly as me."

"I'm bigger than you," Merry defended. "And besides that, you stole _my_ favourite pie, not yours. Couldn't find a blueberry one, then?"

Pippin looked sideways at him for a moment, and then hrmphed. He set the pie on the bedside table and turned to face Merry. "You're thick, Merry," he said, and then chuckled. "There were two blueberry, I'll have you know. You mean to say you haven't noticed that I _always_ steal _your_ favourite?" Merry would have said something to the effect that he hadn't noticed, as such, as Merry always stole Pippin's favourites as well, so it made sense, but Pippin wasn't done. "And I'm not the only one whose been pilfering from cook. She'll miss her salve, you know. Best you put it back when you're through with it."

"She won't miss it," Merry disagreed confidently. "I took it weeks ago, she's already made herself... " He stopped because it occurred to him exactly what they were so casually discussing, and he was mortified to find himself blushing to the roots of his hair.

But Pippin was quaffing the last of the ale in his mug, and didn't seem to notice. Merry did the same to disguise his warm cheeks. He was very much aware of Pippin's thigh pressed against his, and doubly aware of Pippin's naked chest, and he had to force his eyes not to stray toward it. Pippin was his cousin, his _very young_ cousin, and Merry was suddenly entertaining thoughts that weren't even remotely cousinly toward Pippin.

"Anyhow," Merry said, when his mug was empty, "thank you for the pie, Pip."

Pippin handed Merry his mug and flopped back against Merry's pillows, rubbing his belly contentedly. Merry put the mugs on the table, carefully blocking the jar of salve from view (though it was rather a case of closing the gate after the pigs had already trampled the garden). "You're going to," Pippin said, and sighed softly.

For a few moments, Merry's brain tried to convince Merry that he'd heard the words 'You're welcome', but Merry wasn't _that_ tired, and he hadn't had _that_ much ale.

Pippin hadn't said 'You're welcome.' He'd said 'You're going to.' Which didn't make any sense at all.

"I just did," Merry said, aware that the words were somewhat strangled, but unable to think what to do about it. But when he turned back to Pippin, his eyes were already closed, and Pippin merely murmured sleepily. Pippin had folded his hands behind his head, showing off his chest to good advantage, and Merry looked away, feeling heat in his face. He could still feel Pippin's thigh against his, and it was unbearably warm. Pippin seemed on the verge of sleep, and Merry knew from experience that Pip would resist all suggestions that he remove himself back to his own room.

The lack of privacy, which had been only a minor inconvenience when Pippin had first interrupted him, was quite suddenly an unacceptable irritation. Pippin's face was sweetly relaxed, and Merry really thought it was for the best if Pippin left. Really.

If he stayed, Merry would not sleep. He'd lay awake all night with the smell of Pippin's hair in his nose (sunshine and apples) and the uncomfortable awareness that he was attracted to his very young cousin in a way that cousins simply shouldn't be, especially cousins separated by eight long years in age, especially cousins of the same sex. Pippin was barely in his tweens! The last thing Merry wanted was for Pippin to drape some part of himself over Merry during the night and discover this (entirely inappropriate) situation. Pippin either wouldn't understand, which would be bad enough, or would understand completely and be horrified, which would be immeasurably worse. Pippin had probably never even thought about another lad in such a way, let alone Merry.

"Pippin," he murmured, and reached a hesitant hand over toward him. Pippin seemed to be fast asleep already, and Merry's hand hovered near his shoulder (which was appallingly naked) for long moments, while Merry tried to work out a plausible excuse for kicking Pippin out of his room for the first time in twenty something years.

He drew back, finally, leaving Pippin unshook. He couldn't do it. Couldn't make up some excuse to send Pippin away, couldn't look at him and blatantly lie. Pippin was his best friend, in spite of their age difference. Merry would just have to spend a sleepless night, and think of some way to solve this sudden and monstrous dilemma tomorrow.

He leaned over the bedside table and blew out that lamp.

Merry lay back and pulled the bedclothes up over both of them, and then slid as far away from Pippin as the bed would allow. He considered finding his nightshirt and pulling it on, but he wasn't sure where it had got to, and he couldn't quite bring himself to get out of the bed and parade around the room naked in the condition he was in.

Pippin's breathing was slow and even, and Merry stared at the ceiling and counted his breaths. He didn't feel even vaguely sleepy. It was going to be a very long night.

He nearly jumped out of his skin when Pippin spoke. "You know, Merry, I've really been awfully patient with you." Pippin's tone was flat and slightly cool, and Merry turned toward him, mouth slightly agape. He couldn't see Pippin very clearly in the darkness, but he could see that Pip's eyes were open and glittering in the moonlight from the window.

"What?" Merry said, anything approaching articulation trampled by the oddness of Pippin's tone.

"You treat me as if I were still a child," Pippin said, and now his tone was implying that this conclusion would have been patently obvious to anyone not as ridiculously thick-skulled as Merry clearly was.

"I don't," Merry objected, but then couldn't think what else to say, because he _did,_ of course he did, Pippin _was_ still a child. "I don't treat you any differently that I've ever treated you," he managed finally.

"Yes, well, that's just it, isn't it, Merry? You've always treated me like a child."

Merry didn't want to point out the fact that Pippin had always _been_ a child, was only just into his tweens. Pippin was clearly in a mope over it, and Merry didn't want to upset him any further. "How is it that you want me to treat you, Pippin?" he asked instead, which seemed like a fairly safe question.

"Like you treat the other lads, Merry. Like you treat Berilac. And Frodo." Pippin was wearing an in-between expression, a cross between stubborn insistence and sulkiness. Merry tried to pretend that his cheeks weren't hot, and hoped that the moonlight wasn't bright enough to reveal blushes. It was nothing more than coincidence, that Pippin had picked those two names out of the barrel. Coincidence. "I want you to treat me like _that,_ Merry," Pippin added, and there was definite emphasis on the word _that,_ spoken in softly solemn tones that were too unlike Pippin for Merry's comfort.

Merry had the sudden urge to make Pippin laugh, see him smile, and then all of this would be like a dream. Pippin would be Pippin again, not this unfamiliar hobbit that had Merry's skin tingling and nerves dancing. Merry could go back to be comfortable with Pippin again, thinking of _Pippin_ comfortably again. Any other time, it would have been easy. Reach out with fingertips and slide them along Pippin's sensitive sides or dig them into the firm muscle just above Pippin's knees, and Pippin would simply shriek with laughter.

Right now, however, Pippin's face forbade it.

"Frodo is nearly fifty, Pippin," Merry said (and what a ridiculous thing to say, that). Merry sighed, and Pippin snorted.

"And I'm twenty-one, and you're twenty-eight, Merry, which makes us _both_ tweenagers, similar in nearly every respect. I'm not a child, and _you_ are not my elder, and to tell you the truth, Merry, I've really been far more patient with you than you deserve!"

"Pippin!" Merry objected, and his own voice sounded oddly strangled again, and he couldn't quite seem to catch up to this conversation in his own mind. That Pippin was quick witted was no surprise. It was how Pippin always got them into so much trouble.

And out of it, too, Merry had to admit.

But it always started just this way. He would take something Merry was mulling over, and make it all sound so deceptively simple. He had a way of saying things that Merry never quite managed to overcome.

If Pippin wanted to pick apples out of Farmer Maggot's modest orchard, and Merry objected, Pippin would just give Merry this look, something that combined fondness and exasperation in equal measures. He started out with definitives, things Merry simply couldn't deny, such as: _Merry, you **want** an apple, don't you?_

And of course, Merry did, so he was forced to answer in the affirmative, and Pippin would just continue from there, squashing all of Merry's objections ( _They aren't our apples, Pippin_ ) resolutely, and without apparent effort ( _Farmer Maggot will never miss **two** apples, Merry_ ), until they'd carried off half a dozen apples and Pippin's sheer pleasure at getting away with it was enough to drown all of Merry's compunctions.

And Merry could see that this was heading down that same road: Pippin proposing something; Merry objecting; Pippin smothering Merry's objections with laughter and teasing... except it wasn't.

The whole thing wasn't going as it should, as Merry would expect, because Pippin wasn't laughing or teasing or giving Merry that familiar eye-rolling look of fond exasperation.

No, Pippin was solemn and patient (as he kept reminding Merry) in Merry's bed, elbows propped up beneath him, and speaking in riddles. In all, Merry felt he was at a great disadvantage.

He was also uncomfortably aware of how close Pippin was, their faces only a hand's-width apart in the darkness, their shoulders brushing. Merry was undeniably aware of the texture of Pippin's warm skin and of the way Pippin's ale-tangy breath brushed against Merry's face upon each exhale.

"Merry," Pippin murmured, and Merry could feel the shape of his own name in Pippin's breath as surely as he could hear it in Pippin voice, and it did no good to deny that it stirred him. "Merry, I know you aren't as dense as you are putting on. I know you. I've known you my whole life. Can't you just let it go?"

"Let what go, Pip?" Merry asked, gently, because there was something distressingly fragile about Pippin's voice.

"Who I _was,_ Merry. Can't you let go of who I was, and look at who I _am_?"

Merry wished he could see Pippin's face. He wished he could see Pippin's eyes, see what expression went along with that oh-so-solemn and utterly un-Pippin-like tone. Merry wished he could be sure Pippin was aware of what he was saying. He'd never had trouble understanding what Pippin was trying to tell him any other time, but Pippin had never told him anything in this way, so solemn and soft, so serious.

Merry must've taken too long. Pippin's formidable (according to Pippin, anyhow) patience must have worn away sometime during the long silence in which Merry tried to see Pippin's face more clearly, because Pippin whispered: "I'm going to bed, Merry." His voice was hoarse and stiff with injured dignity.

He sat up and rolled away from Merry. He slid off the edge of the bed, circling round the foot rather than merely clambering over the top of Merry to get to the side closest to the door. His back was very straight, and the moonlight rendered him pale and sleek. The sight of Pippin's stiff spine made Merry ache. Pippin scooped his nightshirt off the foot of the bed as he passed it, and began struggling to get in on while still moving toward the door.

It struck him that Pippin was truly going, he was going to walk out and leave Merry here, and it would be the first time they'd ever quarrelled in this way. And it would be all Merry's fault, because Pippin was right. Merry wasn't thick, and never had been. He was surprised, yes, and he was slightly confused. But he wasn't stupid, and he understood well enough what Pippin wanted.

Pippin was right. Merry had to stop thinking of him as merely terrifyingly precocious and come upon some sort of perspective here.

Pippin was no longer a child. Pippin was, in fact, older by a good bit than Merry had been when he had first gotten it into his head that he'd far rather see Berilac naked than any of the lasses, and Merry hadn't had to do anywhere near this kind of convincing for Berilac to satisfy his curiosity.

Pippin had his hand on the door.

"Pippin," Merry said, and Pippin jerked a little and looked over his shoulder at Merry. The moonlight from the window shone full on his face, and Merry could see Pippin's hope clearly. Merry lifted the blanket, not bothering with nakedness now, and said: "Come back to bed, Pip."

Pippin grinned, bright, alive, so vibrant, so _Pippin,_ and Merry grinned back like he always did, because Pippin smiling at him made Merry's heart glad, had always done so, and always would.

Then Pippin was upon him, literally, _upon_ him, bedclothes pushed heedlessly aside as Pippin tried to accomplish the task of disrobing whilst simultaneously fluttering heated, clumsy kisses onto Merry's face.

For a moment, Merry couldn't see, couldn't breathe, because having Pippin mostly naked (his nightshirt was still clinging on to one of Pippin's arms, and Pippin was flapping that arm ineffectually to dislodge it, rather than using his other hand, because that hand was busily twisting it's fingers into Merry's hair), was enough to tear the blinders off of his mind, and they fell away with something like terrible pain or extreme pleasure - it hardly mattered which - and Merry was drowning in the sudden and very tangible awareness that this was no child. Pippin's weight upon him was solid; the feel of Pippin's sex against his was more than merely solid. Pippin's free hand was pulling and tugging at Merry's hair as Pippin experimented with the angle, to find a good one at which to kiss Merry.

"Merry," Pippin growled into his mouth, and Merry felt heat like fireworks traveling through every part of him. Then Pippin pulled back to glare at the nightshirt still caught on his arm, and Merry's lips quirked helplessly. He grabbed the offending garment and did away with it, still grinning at Pippin's 'patience'. "Blasted thing," Pippin sneered, eyes still narrowed on the garment, and Merry couldn't help but laugh. Pippin gave him a sheepish little smile.

"Foiled by a nightshirt, all your patience come to naught," Merry intoned, and Pippin growled and jabbed his fingertips into Merry's vulnerable sides, sending Merry into a fit of squirming laughter that left them both breathless.

Merry counter-attacked of course -- it was only proper -- and they were soon rolling over and around one another, the room filled with laughter and small gasps as one or the other of them discovered a sensitive bit to tickle or caress, and this was good, this was right.

This was just as it should be, with Pippin.

The silky skin inside Pippin's thighs was as ticklish as Pippin's ribs, and he gasped at Merry's fingers there, not quite a laugh, and squirmed delightedly. "Tickles!" Pippin objected, but when Merry leaned up to kiss him, his mouth was slick and warm and obliging. He giggled when Merry tweaked a nipple with gentle fingers, but moaned unabashedly when Merry licked at it. "Merry!" he gasped, when Merry bit down lightly, and he sounded so much like Merry always did saying Pippin's name -- that same astonished disbelief -- that Merry laughed and did it again, just to make Pippin squeak.

Pippin beaming up from beneath him -- eyes bright and his cheeks flushed -- was an undeniable aphrodisiac, and Pippin was as reckless and wildly excited by this new discovery as he was at each of their adventures.

And that was as it should be, too.


End file.
